


The Principles of Chemistry

by roseclaw



Category: High School Musical
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-03
Updated: 2010-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseclaw/pseuds/roseclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taylor is a chemist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Principles of Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic in my brain for over two years. I'm glad I finally wrote it. Thanks to [](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/profile)[**saekokato**](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/) for the quick beta.

_**The Principles of Chemistry**_  
**Fandom:** HSM  
**Pairing:** Ryan/Chad, Troy/Gabriella   
**Rating:** PG  
**Word Count:** 818  
**Spoilers:** n/a   
**Warnings:** You need to have taken and/or still remember your high school chem class to understand this! (I'm really not kidding.)  
**Author's Note:** I've had this fic in my brain for over two years. I'm glad I finally wrote it. Thanks to [](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/profile)[**saekokato**](http://saekokato.livejournal.com/) for the quick beta.  
**Disclaimer:** Disney and Ortega own HSM.   
**Summary:** Taylor is a chemist.

The Principles of Chemistry

-

 

Taylor is a chemist. The fundamentals of chemical interactions have helped her understand the more complex human interactions. When she really sat down to think about chemical reactions, though, their simplicity is the simplicity of human unpredictability. They are both simple if one follows the right approach.

Hydrogen is the jock in the locker room. He'll hook up with anyone with a hole free in the valence electron shell. Brett DeMichaels is one such jock. He is a football player who can't keep it in his pants, no matter who the person. Taylor has heard rumors about some of those conquests, some of those rumors have come from Brett's mouth. Taylor shudders thinking about where that mouth has been.

Carbon is needy, only half complete. Carbon is the kid who tries on the personalities of other people just to see if they fit. But they're also adventurous. They'll try to bond with anyone. And sometimes everyone. There's a girl, Jessica St. Peter, in ceramics club that will try so hard to be part of any group, no matter what. However, there's also a boy in Taylor's history class, John Rossi, who will – rumor has it – do anything in bed with anyone and one time – this is not a rumor: there was pictorial evidence – multiple people. Taylor was more intrigued by those pictures than she let anyone know. She's supposed to be a prude – at least according to the student body, but damn, those pictures were hot. (She's really not a prude, but whatever. Taylor doesn't care that much about her image. She's a geek. She knows who she is, and she's proud of who she is.)

Oxygen is never by itself. That would be the Evans twins. They're always joined at the hip. Sometimes Taylor sees them being their own person, mostly Sharpay. However, the majority of the time, they're together. Sometimes a redox reaction occurs. Sharpay tears some strong kid, who thought he knew everything about himself, to ruins. Much like iron turning to rust. Or sometimes she stokes a social fire and it grows to disastrous heights. Nothing good can come from hanging around the Evans twins.

Nobel Gases are the snobbiest queen bees. They did everything together and never let anyone else join their clique. That would be Shauna Hernandez, Bethany Weiss, Emily Glass, and Nikki Howes. Everyone calls them the Mean Girls, and they are.

Then there is sodium chloride. That's Troy and Gabriella. Troy had an empty valence shell, and Gabriella filled it so ionically that they're never apart. Taylor hopes that water never separates them. She has no idea what sort of catastrophic event would need water as a metaphor. Of course, once the water clears, the salt forms again. Ionic bonding is the strongest form of chemical bonds. Their bond is so simple and sturdy: a halogen with an alkali.

Alloys are a strange human hybrid of metallic matrix. Two or more metals (or other elements) that together are greater than their sum. Steel, for example, is carbonized iron. Unlike oxygen, when carbon encounters iron, instead of rusting, steel is born. Steel is stronger than iron – and more durable. Chad Danforth is the carbon type. He's up for any sort of fun. Like John Rossi. And one time with John Rossi, but Taylor thinks that's mostly hearsay. And, as much as it pains Taylor to admit this, Ryan Evans is iron in this metaphor. His sister wears on him, rusting him, just like everyone else, but when he's with Chad, their bond is so damn strong it's painful.

There are several other chemical bonds – many other bonds – but the alloys always make Taylor pause. Taylor doesn't know which element she is, maybe cobalt, maybe nickel, maybe even zinc. She knows that she's a transition metal, but she's not iron. She had tried to form that bond with Chad, but they crumbled. Taylor spends too much time thinking about it.

She wishes she were a halogen, so that she could find her alkali, like Troy and Gabriella. Maybe she could even meet an alkaline if she were a halogen. (She's not nearly unstable enough to consider herself an alkali.) It wouldn't be as clean a bond as the ionic one of Tory and Gabriella, but at least it would be stable. There's a lot of time left, though. Taylor can find a bond that works for her.

Kinetics is what plays with Taylor's time. The rate of reaction is sometimes slower with some elements than it is with others. Taylor figures that with a high concentration of people all across the world, she'll collide eventually. And she does plan to explore the world. That's what college is for. And who knows, maybe she'll meet a rich son of a politician at Yale who wants to do the same. Or, more likely, she'll meet a lovely chemist who wants to change the world.


End file.
